


Self Control

by humansandotherpeople



Category: Homestuck
Genre: (swordseriousness), Anal Sex, Asphyxiation, Candy, Contains at least trace amounts of:, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Knifeplay, M/M, Manipulation, Mind Control, Possibility of Perspective Change Whiplash, Prince of Heart bullshit, Selfcest, Sylladex shenanigans, The Homestuck Epilogues, Toxic Masculinity, meat - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-24
Updated: 2019-06-24
Packaged: 2020-05-19 04:40:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19349689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/humansandotherpeople/pseuds/humansandotherpeople
Summary: Sometimes the multiverse, or the narrative or whatever, just tells you in very clear terms that you should go fuck yourself. If you're a particular Dirk Strider, you'll comply gladly, because you hate that guy.Also he's hot.





	Self Control

**Author's Note:**

> Outtakes:
> 
> "Dirkles all the way down"
> 
> Extended riff on the phrase "up his own ass"
> 
> Philosophizing about whether soul splinters dying makes the surviving ones more whole or just diminishes them. Possible refrance to Voldemort, though I feel HP is neither highbrow nor lowbrow nor anime enough for Dirk, which just leaves me with no (pop) cultural references at all, which isn't very in character either
> 
> "Self-assisted suicide. Twice the sui, only one cide."
> 
> A whole thing about the likelihood of catching any new VDs from someone you just stopped being the same person as

differentDirk [DD] began pestering timaeusTestified [TT]. 

DD: Hi Dirk. 

TT: Hi.

DD: ...

DD: Come on. I went to the trouble of changing my chumhandle for you, so we would be able to differentiate between each other at least somewhat in these humongous heaps of orange we were going to accumulate like it’s laundry day at the Buddhist monastery, and you only give me one word? At least ask me how I reached you. Let's get this conversation going. Let's make these monks run around naked.

TT: How did you reach me.

DD: Entered your chumhandle.

TT: Impressive.

DD: Apparently this does nothing when anybody else does it. Even on Trollian with all its mega advanced overblown fuckin' Tech 12.0 features you can only talk to your past and future selves in memos. That is, the primitive populace can. I'm sure you, much the same as me because you are much the same as me, can talk to whatever instance of you you like.

TT: Regardless of whether I MacGyvered it as a teenager or some idiot in booty shorts dreamed it up? Sounds like exactly the Prince of Heart superpower I've been yearning for.

DD: Of course you don't like any instances of you.

TT: I don't.

DD: And who can blame you? Even when we're from exotic places such as narrative branches of differing grades of canonicity, we still talk either too much or too little, we're too needy and too distant.

TT: You're too needy. I'm not distant enough from you.

DD: You're right. We can never get very far away from ourselves, can we? Dirks are all we can ever see. Even when we don't plant a see-through one in front of our eyes.

TT: You know what? I kind of miss that guy compared to you. Maybe I should go out and see if I can find the red ghost horse dude. Haven't had a good lactation chat in years. Anyway, isn't DD supposed to stand for Diamonds Droog? Are you just a broad chitinous gangster pretending to be me?

DD: Who the fuck is Diamonds Droog.

TT: You've never read the cultural milestone that is The Midnight Crew? I'm ashamed to be sharing an identity with you.

TT: Who am I kidding. The timelines had to have split somewhere.

DD: Not timelines, Dirk, narrative branches. This is basic stuff. I can't believe you'll get to run yours.

TT: Maybe I will because I'm not too busy haranguing alternate selves.

DD: Maybe you will because you're the only one to not preemptively do the right thing.

TT: And what, pray tell, is "the right thing" in the moral framework you're from?

DD: Can't you guess? Well, you've clearly not been keepin' up with the others as a proper Ultimate Prince of Heart should. They're dropping like sick beats on your bro's fire tracks. The most diluted one of them all, the one that we thought might be there forever because he became part of Lord English? Gone. Even the ones that were part of unholy agglomerations got over their obsessions with their muscles and circuits and consequently, rid of themselves.

TT: Then what's keeping you?

DD: Not sure it would stick yet. You see, the others have the advantage of either never having godtiered, or doing more unspeakably heinous shit to poor sweet moronic innocent Jake than either of us have yet, or destroying their families, or dooming their worlds. Whereas I want to off myself purely preventively, so I don't become you. The craziest shit is that it wouldn't even matter if I did! And neither does killing myself. So I might as well do it.

DD: Also this Ultimate Self shit really hurts when you're doing it right.

DD: Your daughter kept going through that in your narrative branch, right? You might want to do something to help her.

TT: I'm not going to fucking euthanize Rose. If you thought you could fill up your mandatory evil quota without harming anyone in your own timeline or narrative branch or whatever by pushing me to, I'll have to disappoint you.

DD: No, don't kill her. I'm just saying. She's suffering. Put all that narrative control you've been clawing out of the hands of the avatars of everybody's self-determination to use and help her out.

DD: I don't intend to swing the pendulum to just by using you as a proxy.

TT: Then what? Looking for villain tips?

DD: No, Dirk. Looking for a victim who really has it coming.

Dirk is typing lightning-fast, but he will never get the chance to hit send. His retort will be lost to history. The two things that interrupt are just as fast as he is: The edge of a sword against his neck and a hand against his sternum, pulling him back from the computer. His office chair rolls back with no resistance. He could have put a foot down and resisted the drag, but seeing as the blade moves back at the same speed, probably only to the detriment of his jugular integrity. And this version of him really isn't as much of a sucker for decapitation as the running gags would have you believe.

The back of Dirk's meticulously sculpted hair is flattened against someone's chest. The chest is obviously also Dirk's. A different Dirk's.

differentDirk [DD] has ceased pestering  timaeusTestified [TT] via Pesterchum and is now instead pestering him in real life!

Dirk's momentary shocked expression settles into stoic resignation.

Dirk: Fine, I'll bite. How did you get here?

Different Dirk: I was already here. Turns out, wherever there's a Dirk, we can just join him for a little heart to heart with only minor purple flashing.

The sword presses against Dirk's neck just that disconcerting little bit harder. Different Dirk bows forward, messing up his hair even more, and whispers very close to his ear.

Different Dirk: And you don't need to try reality-hopping away, to any other Dirk's side. You’d only end up with me again. We're the last ones left. It's why you've been finding it easier and easier to concentrate on doing your own thing. The easy way to Ultimate Selfness. Just be the last Dirk standing.

Dirk: That makes you Penultimate Dirk.

Different Dirk: Yes.

With that word, different Dirk's lips actually graze the shell of Dirk's ear. Only for a fraction of a second, but Dirk is keenly aware of it.

Different Dirk: As such, I am in a very particular position of power over you. I am your last obstacle before you can achieve total focus. Hence why it's in your best interest that my suicide goes through without any autoresurrection induced hitches.

Dirk: And how do I ensure that? Do I lie back and think of Derse slash Waterworld or do I resist as much as possible so your evil ticker goes up?

Dirk: That's what's going on here, right? We're making you a rapist.

Dirk: Where doing it. Where making it hapen.

Dirk: Does it even count when it's with yourself? Isn't that just self-hating masturbation?

Dirk: Like we're even capable of any other kind.

Different Dirk: What about self agrandizing masturbation.

Dirk: Oh yeah. But I have a feeling that won't characterize this particular instantiation.

Dirk's eyes move minutely to indicate the sword. There's no way different Dirk could have seen it, what with the shades and standing behind him. But he knows exactly that it happened and what it meant.

Different Dirk: We'll see.

Suddenly the sword is gone. Different Dirk is still holding Dirk against him with one hand. The grip is fairly hard, but not unbreakable. Dirk mainly doesn't fight back because he knows they're very, very evenly matched, going down struggling valiantly would maybe count as some form of heroic, while being killed in self defense would almost certainly be just – which would be exactly what the other guy is out for. To a lesser degree, he doesn't fight back because he is actually curious what different Dirk has in store for him. He wholeheartedly agrees that he has it coming, after all. He wonders whether he'll enjoy it.

Just as he thinks that, different Dirk starts kissing his neck. His lips are soft and his stubble is rough. One corner of his shades pokes Dirk in the cheek. It would be funny and break the tension in different circumstances.

Dirk: Wait. Are you controlling the narrative? Did you make me feel that way?

Different Dirk: What way do I make you feel?

Different Dirk's voice is a parody of a low, sexy growl. But he can't hide that snaring quality that Dirk will never be able to bear. He paws at Dirk's groin while he says it, which exhibits no particular reaction. Perhaps that's a sign that different Dirk isn't pulling any more metaphorical strings. Perhaps it's a sign that he is.

Different Dirk: Really I wouldn't even have to control the narrative. I would just have to control a splinter of me with the Power of Heart.

Different Dirk is now stroking him pensively through his ridiculous pantaloons. Back and forth and back and forth and goddammit, his groin does begin displaying a particular reaction.

Different Dirk: But am I?

### > Come to your senses.

You take your hands off Dirk and rear back, shocked at how far you've taken this.

Different Dirk whirls your chair around so that you're face to face with him. Other than the fingerless gloves you've already seen while he was holding you back and inappropriately touching you, he's wearing cargo shorts and a shirt with a hat on it. It's almost as if you put on your godtier garb instead of this exact outfit this morning in order to visually differentiate yourself from him. Also, he doesn't look that shocked, but what do you know. Maybe it's just his famous stoic facade.

Different Dirk: Haha. Subtle.

There's the sword again. Its tip touches, through a layer of godly pajamas and a layer of silk briefs, the tip of Dirk's dick. He flinches, but his erectile tissue does not regard the situation as a sign to stop doing what it's been doing.

The tip of the sword moves up along the outline of Dirk's dick all the way to the waistband of the pantaloons. Then it creeps under the hem of his shirt. Dirk shudders as cold metal touches his skin.

Different Dirk makes his next move very, very fast. He slides his anime sword higher under Dirk's shirt, then slices through it, right through the middle of the divided heart symbol. The remains hang limply down Dirk's side, a purple curtain drawn back to reveal a thoroughly postmodern play of a man.

Different Dirk lets the sword linger on Dirk's Adam's apple for old time's – meaning two minutes ago, when the word rapist hadn't yet been spoken – sake. Then the sword vanishes back into different Dirk's ludicrously expansive strife deck.

Different Dirk feels down Dirk's exposed chest. It can't be very unfamiliar to him, other than through perspective, but he sure does seem to savor Dirk's oddly gaunt torso. Dirk reflects on his habit of not taking his gloves off when touching other people. They do come off when he's pleasuring himself. If there was any doubt about it, by that measure that's not what different Dirk is doing. And/or, also by that measure, different Dirk regards Dirk as another person.

Dirk, on the other hand, is divided on the issue of whether different Dirk is him. Would it improve anything if he was? The long, strong fingers around his neck? The fist in his hair? The hot lips pressing a quick kiss to the corner of his mouth? The undiminishing fucking arousal?

Different Dirk: Dirk.

Different Dirk has stopped pawing and nibbling at him and is pushing the chair across the room. Perhaps unsurprisingly, to the bed, where he lifts it as if there isn't a whole young man sitting in it and dunks him into the sheets.

Different Dirk: Lie back and think of Derse slash waterworld.

Suddenly different Dirk is on top of him, grinding their hips together. Dirk notices that different Dirk is even less hard than he is. He hasn't been so relieved that something's not really doing it for him since Jane's last half-hearted (or should he call it short-lived?) attempt to seduce him for political gain and to make Jake jealous.

Different Dirk says some nonsensical bullshit in which he rhymes "pubes" with "lubes", producing a bottle of said materials from his sylladex while the equal exchange (of sick verse) modus yanks out some of Dirk's pubic hairs and stores them away. Dirk hopes the modus isn't great at distinguishing Dirks and got some from the other guy as well. Equality, bitch. That's what it's all about.

Then different Dirk spouts even less coherent poetry in order to get his clothes into his sylladex. The shades don't come off, naturally. The gloves do. Whether that's a meaningful indicator regarding the two Dirks' oneness or lack thereof or he just doesn't want to get lube on them is still up in the air. Maybe Dirk was just full of shit when he made that observation about the naked hands.

While Dirk inspects the theoretically very attractive naked form of his alternate self, his godtier pantaloons and the ripped shirt vanish into the sylladex as well. Different Dirk returns the appraising lookdown from his advantaged position. Then, perhaps deciding that Dirk isn't exposed enough yet, he takes off his glasses. With his hands, not bad rapping. He places them very carefully onto the bedside table. Dirk blinks into the sudden brightness of his room, but ultimately doesn't manage to look away from different Dirk. His dick is, as opposed to Dirk's, still perfectly flaccid, if admittedly nicer to look at from this angle than when he just looks down. Buf if Dirk knows himself – and that is his literal superpower – that's really unlikely to deter him.

Different Dirk: You can do it, by the way.

Dirk: By now it seems unlikely that I'll be able to avoid doing it, to be honest.

Different Dirk: If you want to look at yourself as more of an active participant, you're very welcome to. But I meant my suicide. You can walk me off that cliff when the day comes.

Dirk: That belltower.

Different Dirk: As you wish. We'll both get the satisfaction of killing a meaningless Dirk like we've always wanted. Justice will be served like it's a billionaire on Butler Island. Justice will be so fucking pampered, it'll chill there on butler island right until retirement age, leaving you entirely unchecked. You'll be in charge of the narrative, you'll get to pick a cosmically significant and poetically fitting time, place and manner. I'll be gone for good, after having the only possible sex left with acceptable truth, relevance and essentiality values. Everybody wins.

Dirk sighs.

Dirk: I'm guessing I can't convince you that it would be more useful to look at sex on a good-bad axis rather than a canonicity spectrum.

Different Dirk: Of course not.

No, that's a laughable proposition, seeing as you yourself never made such a pedestrian distinction. And different Dirk is not so different from you, after all. When did you diverge? Yesterday? Except with two of you in the room you get to feel his heavy presence the way people around you usually have to feel yours. You pontificate a great deal about having to spend time with yourself – your selves – constantly, but it's rarely so acute. The other Dirk may not have any morals, and definitely doesn't have your best interests at heart, but he has your full attention. 

The truth is, and even you'll have to admit that: Dirk looks fucking impressive, and maybe even more so naked. His sharp edges might well have been drawn with deft bamboo brushstrokes, his planes colored in sparingly. The artist may make it look easy, but the finished artwork is unquestionably majestic. You are transfixed by the way he moves, maybe even more than by the purpose for which he does.

You are TRANSFIXED by me, Dirk, don't look away. You don't want to miss the show. I'm not fucking with you here, at least not in that way, you really don't. I'm putting in very little effort to keep you where you are. You could have me skewered so easily, here on your home turf, now that it's established you'll be doing me that favor later anyway.

You could even summon one of your little puppets – say, your brother, for instance – to walk in on us and decapitate me for you. You're only where you are because you want to be. And you've only tried to look away the once, so it must have been for appearance's sake. You must want to watch me lube myself up for you methodically while I kneel over you.

Dirk: I must because you tell me to.

Yes, because you want to do what I tell you. Everybody is a little bit of a sub at heart when confronted with someone like me, even you.

Also Dirk: Yes. Watch, bitch.

I give you two strokes with my slippery hand. Your cock is a beautiful specimen and so very turgid for me. But it doesn't do to dwell, not when penetration could be happening instead. So I sink down on you. You breach my sphincter and fill me up intensely satisfyingly, as if we were not merely created from ourselves, but also for ourselves. For your benefit I show you my appreciation with a little moan.

You just lie there, pretending to be thinking about the places you grew up in, both because I commanded you to and so you don't have to face that you like this. But underneath it's all about me, me, me and the way I make the well-oiled mechanism that is the two of our bodies move. Wasn't I there with you on your skeletal highrise above the waves, the only soul keeping you company? Wasn't I the only waking human with you when you drifted between the purple spires, studying the dark and grinding machinations of chitinous bureaucracy? Didn't you fantasize about doing something quite similar to this with me at the time?

You used to talk about drowning in yourself, when most of your selves weren't dead yet. But now it's just the two of us, and yet you're literally drowning in me. I envelop you in ways you couldn't even have dreamed up in your most perverted, computer-self assisted scenarios. You finally lift a finger to hold on to me. Your calloused hands clasp my lower back as if my body was buoyant and could help you stay afloat. Bitch, you thought wrong. I'm going to drag you right down.

There are many valid criticisms of me, but that I don't know how to drive a guy crazy isn't one of them. I clench down hard on you and gyrate my hips. My prostate is getting everything it wants from this, even though my dick has been a bit slow on the uptake, as you've rightly noted. Finally you're showing some emotion with something other than your genitals. You hiss and dig your nails into my flesh. It's a start. It also goes a long way towards making me hard. Really astonishingly late into the process, considering how hot you are. But it's just not the same when you're not putting all your training, all those carefully honed violent reflexes to use.

You scratch my back and I return the favor and show off my own strength. I cut off your airflow. You are just so stunned by me you literally can't breathe. You stare at me wide-eyed. You can be quite expressive without those shades, can't you? You begin writhing under me. Ah, that felt good. I loosen my narrative grip. You gasp for air, but not for long, as my physical grip replaces it. You're relatively cerebral, but sometimes brain stuff just doesn't match up to the touch of a human hand.

You buck up into me, trying to find the spot that made me let go of you the last time. You don't find it, but I'll give you a point for effort and also let go before you pass out, as you're starting to contribute more than just your immobile flesh. I stroke your neck with one finger. You're getting goosebumps. It's all about the involuntary reflexes with you, huh? I didn't really know that about me. You can know whole libraries of insignificant bullshit about yourself and still learn something new every time you meet yourself.

For example, when you throw me off, I am wholly unprepared. You are very fast. This is not a new thing I've just learned about you now, but it seems especially pertinent as I land on my side and you roll me over the rest of the way onto my back. Somehow you manage to pin my wrists down above my head. Your eyes glint. With lust, or just danger? Who the fuck knows, and after a second you hide it by taking off my pair of shades and putting it on. The symbolism is a bit heavy-handed. But it does suit you.

You stare down at me with your impenetrable shaded gaze. Your mouth is a thin line. And then it's not – it's on me, it's a point of heat on my skin, your tongue is doing three-dimensional geometry to my mouth. I'm afraid I'll have to describe what I'm doing right now as whimpering. I am as turned on as the hot water in the shower before you manage to adjust it to something that won't boil you alive. But getting some burns in order to get your ablution on never bothered you much, did it? And just like that you push back into me. A bit roughly, but contextually that's just right.

At least as much Dirk as you are: Fuck, that's...

Keeping up a detailed narration gets somewhat challenging at this point.

You could almost say I'm the real Dirk: Ah, Dirk!

You ravage me completely, with your tongue and with your cock, I enjoy it probably a lot more than you do, and that's really all there is to say on the matter.

Me, who is real, who is Dirk: God, Dirk, please, please...

You can't resist a perfectly good cock for long. Especially when you know you can make it do your bidding with the touch of your hand. So you grab mine, as it's the only one in the room not currently balls deep in Strider ass. The friction of the fingerless glove stings. Didn't I take those off you? No wait, those were mine. Fuck, that feels...

The other Dirk vanishes abruptly beyond the relevance horizon whence he came. There is suddenly nothing holding up the Dirk that actually belongs here, and he faceplants into his pillow. He is even more alone with himself than previously. His stomach and his glove are smeared with come. Not his own, except in the ways in which it is. He groans and peels the soiled glove off. For five minutes or so, he remains absolutely motionless. That's enough time to make it clear that his predicament won't go away on its own, the way the other Dirk has. He makes a face, rolls onto his side and grabs his dick. He finishes not long after. It feels raw more than pleasurable.

Dirk replaces the other Dirk's sunglasses with his own, identical ones. The implications of the shades being left on this side of the horizon are unclear to him, as are those of his godtier garb squirreled away in different Dirk's sylladex to the other narrative strand. As any time godtier clothes are destroyed or lost, new ones will materialize for him soon. He wonders if they would stay dead if they were to go in a heroic or a just fashion.

Speaking of which, Dirk reaches across the divide into a part of reality he has no interest in beyond this one thing he has to do. Perfectly motionless, he hunts you down. He finds you very quickly, because insignificant as you are, you are the last spark of relevance in your entire branch. And he is going to extinguish you.

Your name is Dirk Strider, and you know what you must do.


End file.
